Knockout
by MandNwriterzz
Summary: What were Castle and Beckett thinking during Montgomery's funeral? Read and find out! A Castle one shot. Not AU. It is honestly better than the summary. :D Read, review, favorite and follow. Thanks a lot! -N


**Whazzup, guys? Like I have noted before, I am now at school and every assignment is graded. Ugh, teachers, you know? Anyway, please expect a lot of one shots from me now. This one is dedicated to the beyond amazing, awesome, phenomenal show, Castle.**

**This is a version of 3x24 "Knockout", of what Castle and Beckett were thinking in their points of view about the events.**

**Rating: K - T for swearing and violence**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or any of their fantastic characters.**

**Please read and enjoy! :D A note to please read: If you don't review, at least follow and favorite. Please. Pretty please? Okay, last one. PLEASE.**

**Again, read on!**

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Beckett:

_"No one. No one outside this immediate family ever needs to know about this. As far as the world is concerned, Roy Montgomery died a hero. We owe it to him. All of us."_

That was what I had said the previous night to my fellow friends and co workers. I still remembered the events right before Castle and I arrived in my apartment. How my heart wrenched as the realization that my captain- someone I had trusted, someone I had considered a _friend_ -had been involved in my mother's murder. The hot tears that had shed from my hazel eyes and streaked down my cheeks as I was dragged away from him. Despite that betrayal Roy had kept from me for four years, I didn't want to lose him. I had forgiven him for the heavy burden of a secret he kept from me. He was too dear to me. Castle himself had wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and pulled me away from him, destroying any chance I had of saving Roy.

_"No! God, Castle! Let me go! No! Let me go! Please!"_

I had been desperate. I forgave Roy. Yet I couldn't save him. He saved me. Saved me from Hal Lockwood, the lying, good for nothing, fucking son of a bitch who had possibly killed my mother. And both of them were dead. First my mother, then Dick Coonan, then Hal Lockwood and now Roy Montgomery.

Hal Lockwood's car had been zooming up the helicopter pad, the symbol that Death was coming for her and Roy baited him, trading my life for his. Sometimes, I wished that people didn't treat me like a child. I was a perfectly good cop, hard nosed and self assured. I didn't need people needing to coddle me. But seeing Roy's shadowy figure shrinking smaller and smaller as I thrashed in Castle's arm, I had felt downright furious, pummeling my partner's body with my fists to no result. I didn't know why I always told Castle to stay in the car, because he could surprisingly hold his own against my years of cop training.

Hearing the heavy metal door slam shut had tugged one of my heartstrings painfully. It was no use. Roy was a dead man and since Castle had pushed me up against the side of the car and started whispering words in the most soothing tone he could manage, I couldn't break away.

Then there were the boom of gunshots echoing through the empty darkness of the night. That had been the last straw. Summoning the last bit of my strength, I had tore past Castle, who let me past me and I crashed through the door, only to let out a silent sob that racked my whole body. There they were, Lockwood and his followers and . . . Roy.

I had sprinted over, but it was like I couldn't get there fast enough. As I knelt by his limp body, I hopelessly rested my hands on his head, my fingers trailing over the dark, tough and cold skin of his face. Then the tip of my index finger met his throat and I gasped at the stillness of it. No swallowing, heaves of breathing, no pulse. I cried out his name, but it was too late.

He was gone.

The night after, we all met up at my place. All the details were still burned into my memory. Esposito's grave look, the muscles of his features tightened and taut with anguish; Ryan's pale face streaked with damp and crystalline lines that tears had made; Castle's dark blue eyes now stormy with emotion as his hands gripped the arm rest of his chair tightly. I was the only one who looked calm and collected, but inside, I was drowning again. My training officer, Royce turned out to be a backstabbing liar, but I had considered him a friend, a father figure. After walking away from him, Montgomery turned into my impromptu father figure. But it turned he was keeping biting secrets from me as well.

But we did owe him this. Despite him withholding that vital information to me, he was a good captain and a leader and a great father and husband to his family. He had a good life, went to a good college, started a family and saved plenty of lives. And he was killed because of a mistake he committed several years ago as a young man. The only other flaw to his story.

The other being him dying too young.

Now, I bit back any sobs that were trying to escape my lips and blinked back the tears that were fighting their way up my throat, which felt like it was coated in sandpaper. We didn't spare any expense for this funeral. It was definitely full on fallen officer, which was what he deserved. I was dressed in formal police officer wear along with the rest of the Force with Javi and Kevin by my side. We gripped the handles of the coffin and I could tell that the two other men accompanying me had their knuckles tightened to complete bright whiteness under their gloves just like me.

We walked down the grassy path slowly and as we passed, the two lines of police officers lining on either side of us each raised a hand to kiss their forehead as a salute. The gestures just made the fist closing around my heart grip tighter.

Roy's family was waiting at the burial site, obviously trying to keep it together, but failing. His two daughters were huddled together in an embrace, tears sparkling in their dark eyes. When the flag that had been draped on the casket was passed around, as soon it reached Evelyn Montgomery, she let out a heartbreaking sob, definitely remembering her husband's duty to his country.

I sucked in another deep breath as I marched up to the stand where the microphone was waiting for me to speak my eulogy into it. I placed my hands at either side of the stand, where a huge bouquet of sickly pink and red roses lay on top of. My heart was speeding up with emotion, but I managed to keep my voice as steady and calm as possible. There was no way everyone here was going to see me break down.

Castle:

Watching Beckett climb up to the stand in such a serious and stable manner, with her shoulders set back tightly, her chest moving up and down evenly, her eyes fixed ahead and her mouth set in a gentle but firm line still amazed me to no end. She was such a complex and fascinating woman, someone who could be as tough as steel nails yet provided a softer, feminine side to herself. She could be so compassionate and thoughtful while at the same time, she could lash out like a cobra. She was a hell of a woman, all right.

Maybe that was why I was so madly, desperately, unconditionally, absolutely, positively and _completely_ in love with her. A lot of adjectives to that sentences, but I was a writer. What did you expect? Everything in my mind had incredible detail. Looking at Beckett, I noticed how the golden sunlight brought out the molten gold and honey gold streaks in her thick and beautiful hair that was tied up in a bun. I liked that hairstyle. It made her haunting good looks even more sophisticated.

Everyone had shown up today. I could see the raven mane of Lanie Parrish. My mother sat in the front, donning pitch black shades over her pale blue eyes, and Alexis was cuddled up by her side, her red gold hair spilling over her shoulder and starkly contrasted against her dark black dress. Her own blue eyes that she had inherited from my side of the family were fixed on the hole in the ground, where Roy Montgomery's casket now lay in.

I tried to distract myself from the gnawing feeling in my stomach that made me want to shed a tear by observing the background. I didn't know why it was sunny today. Normally, in my novels, the funerals had a typical rainy day with smoky black clouds crowding the sky and ridding the bright colors in drapes of shadowy darkness, but today, it was a bright and sunny day, full of splashes of color, the green grass sparkling with clear dew, the violet blue and blood red of the flowers lined along the grave, the same for the Flag of the USA.

"Roy Montgomery taught me what it meant to be a cop." The start of Beckett voicing her eulogy snapped me back to attention and I turned back to face her side since I was lingering one end of the stage, watching everyone stare at her, obviously becoming impressed. "He taught me that we are bound by our choices, but we are more than our mistakes. Captain Montgomery once said to me that for us, there is no victory. There are only battles." I saw her swallow down hard and I knew she was choking down a sob. She was so strong. "And in the end, the best you can hope for is to find a place to make your stand. And if you're very lucky, you find someone to stand with you."

She turned her head toward me and threw a sidelong glance at me briefly, a breeze ruffling both of our dark locks, and I found myself slightly smiling inside. We were partners and we always stood by each other. I knew she was referring to that. And yes, we were lucky to have each other. But if only she knew how much I really cared for her. I shot her another encouraging nod so she could continue.

So she did and I looked back at all the gravestones popping out of the grass like rows of alabaster colored teeth. It was a wonder why so many people died in New York. It wasn't just about the crime rate, or maybe that was what it all about. People at the wrong place at the wrong time because some Joe wanted to rob a bank or a fancy and luxurious apartment. Sometimes, standing up to bad guys got you killed.

That was how Roy Montgomery died. But he died a hero, no matter what he did in the past. He saved Beckett and I would have owed him a life debt had he lived. My eyebrows joined together in another brooding frown as my heart sunk a bit. I didn't exactly regret pulling Beckett out of that helicopter pad, but at the cost of Montgomery's life . . .

Suddenly, my train of thought was interrupted when my dark blue eyes caught on to something. As my eyes scanned the graveyard, they spotted a strange glint of silver shining behind one of the grave stones. It winked at me once and then again. I then noticed that it was the scope of a . . . gun.

But I noticed it too late.

"Our Captain would want us to carry on the fight," Beckett was saying and everyone, including her, was blissfully unaware of what was coming. I had just bounded into a run while she said, "And even if there is-" Her lips were just forming the silent word 'one' when it happened. I was a millisecond too late.

The sound of a bullet whistling through the air echoed in my eardrums hauntingly, as the bullet itself drove itself home deep into Beckett's chest.

Beckett:

When you fire a gun, usually there was this huge and very loud bang that made the air molecules around the weapon shake uncontrollably afterward. This time, there was only the sound of a sharp and clean slice through the air straight towards me.

I was right in the middle of my speech when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Castle was barreling toward me, hard and fast, trying to stop what was apparently and inevitably coming. I wasn't sure of what he was doing, but then I heard that snip through the air, the sound of an almost silent gunshot, the bullet whizzing at breakneck speed. The the piercing of the metal fragment of a bullet embedding itself into my body. Then the roaring of my pulse in my ears.

I was hit.

My spine bent forward a little. At first, I didn't know I had gotten shot until my fingers weakly flew up to the center of my chest, where a small and bloody hole lay in my clothing. My eyes snapped down to my hand, where the extremely stark contrast of dark and brilliant scarlet blood droplets splattered across the side of my newly washed and bleached, clean white glove. The realization dawned on me like a ton of massively heavy bricks. My pulse then jumped to a mile a minute, no, a mile a second, the pounding shooting goosebumps up my arms and my blood was escaping in torrents now.

Someone had just _shot _me. The pain was very sharp and sudden, beginning in my chest and spreading outward with electric fingers, almost like cracks forming in the breaking of a glass window sheet. A scream began to build in my throat, but halted at the torment of my body, staying inside, just building up the already way too big lump stuck in my windpipe.

I staggered back in a faltering stumble. I was losing control of my legs. My whole body was raging with an excruciating and burning sensation. I remembered the horrifying feeling of my blood pouring out of my wound and still trickling down my stomach, staining my clothes further. That was when I felt Castle's arms tighten around me, trying to save me by taking us down and we lurched backwards, off the stage and careening through the air to make impact onto the soft bed of grass. My nose inhaled the scent of earthy and warm dirt. We landed with a big thump and I almost got whiplash. But I didn't care. I needed to stay calm or I wouldn't make it through this.

"Kate!" Castle's voice came out in a shout obviously, his lips parted widely and his eyes staring down at my body, trying to find the wound, which was probably more severe than I anticipated since his navy blue eyes enlarged greatly. But the cry only came out as a whisper to me, my blood still boiling with agony inside my eardrums.

Everything was echoing inside of me. I heard a scream, a cry, a holler rise up from the crowd of black clad mourners as they all realized what was happening. I managed to make out Lanie's face, which was twisted up in horror and her mouth was open in a silent scream, a hand raised towards me. She was beyond astonished and instinctively trying to get to me, her best friend, but I saw Javi push her back, shielding her from any other threats that were yet to come.

"Where'd that come from?" Kevin Ryan's voice demanded while Esposito called out in a concerned order, "Lanie, get down!" Alexis and Martha joined Evelyn and the kids down on the ground and I saw Alexis' ice blue orbs seeking out where her father was. He was now on top of me, gazing into my golden green eyes with his own. I now noticed their beautiful color, a very dark navy blue that reminded me of the sky when a rumbling sea storm was brewing. Those stormy eyes were now swelling with concern and intense emotions when he looked at me, like they always did. I couldn't believe I just noticed when I had a bullet buried in my chest.

"Beckett's down! Beckett's down!" Ryan was calling out to the other officers, who were now splitting up into groups to find the shooter. My muscles and bones twitched and my chest was heaving up and down rapidly with uneven hitches. My heart was threatening to explode with the torture of having a bullet so close to it, but I had to keep calm. I couldn't go into shock. I couldn't just give up and join my mother just yet. I had to solve her murder, know who murdered her so I could get some closure and not let her down. I just couldn't let her down. Never in a million years would I give up on her.

"Kate, shh . . ." Castle hushed me in the same comforting and pacifying tone he used with me the night Roy died. He was here for me, trying to keep me calm, trying to keep me with him. I had to follow along. A strange smile tugged on his lips, like he was trying to convince me with that gesture that we weren't at a funeral, that I wasn't lying on the ground, my body tense with suffering. His wistful expression was stark against the bright and pale blue sky, making his eyes look even darker in comparison.

"Kate. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay?" He sounded desperate, his voice cracking from carrying all of the burdens forming today at this funeral. I remembered chanting the same words in my head and speaking them from my lips when I was trying to keep Dick Coonan alive, just to find out who killed my mother. Castle was right. I just wanted a place to hide and I started up relationships with men I didn't love. That was because my own feelings weren't sorted out with Castle. I was sure what he was in my mind. A partner, a friend, maybe something more . . . I just didn't know about the last one. The kiss we had shared to save Esposito and Ryan had made me feel even more alive than I did when I was only around Castle, but I didn't know whether to show Castle that or not. I had dove in for another kiss after that one-

Wait, what was I doing? Why was I rambling off my totally confusing feelings for Castle? Oh my God, I was going into shock. Calm down, Kate. Calm down, calm down, calm down!

Castle was slightly helping. He had one hand encircled around my bicep and the other hand cupping the back of my neck, massaging small and soothing circles into my skin in an effort to calm me down as well. I tried to focus on him as hard as I could, but it was too much and now black spots were clouding up my vision and everything was blurring up. Nothing made any sense anymore. The world was unraveling before my eyes. I was so scared. I was terrified, my body petrified in frozen fear. Hot tears were burning my eyes and one finally escaped my eyes and slid down my temple and plopped onto the grass.

"Kate," Castle whispered again and he sighed in a deep breath before confessing: "I love you. I love you, Kate."

If me getting shot was shocking, this was surpassed it by a landslide. Castle loved me? Was I to actually believe that? I was not incredulous and I wanted to tell him I did too, but this was Castle. He was a player, always flirting with the hottest women his eyes would meet and not to mention, when I first met him, he had asked if he wanted to sign my chest. He also attempted to flirt with me during interrogation. And he had sex with ex wife and admitted it later on, without any questioning necessary. And he rekindled his romance with his second ex wife. Speaking of ex wives, he had been divorced twice, proving he wasn't the world's greatest romance expert. Castle was also my co worker and my friend, so that would put a frown on others' faces, and I vowed that I wouldn't date seriously until my mother's case was solved.

But I was crazy about him. I was in love with him too, so that didn't stop the tiniest and most imperceptible smiles crossing my lips. But my body couldn't handle anymore and was in complete shock now. The dark spots were sparkling across my vision. Finally, the blackness was swallowing me up, my body that was screaming and burning with agonizing pain betraying me, and my eyelids drifted over my eyes, draping me in utter and silent darkness.

Castle:

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate."

There. The words I had for so long kept hidden deep down in the deepest corners of my heart were now so easily flowing off of my lips. I had to tell her, just in case she died. If she left me. If she died, I wouldn't have any reason to stick around the precinct. If she died, I wouldn't have any more inspiration for my Nikki Heat books. If she died, my life would be over, incomplete, worthless. Kate Beckett was my life now. I helped her with trying to solve her mother's murder, but I had hurt her so many times before, and her me.

But none of that mattered. Not those times, not my other and Alexis cooped up several meters away, not the funeral, not Espo and Ryan, nothing. It was only her and me.

I saw the clear tears glistening in her lovely hazel eyes, like diamonds, like shining starlight shimmering in the dark sky at night. I wanted her to say something, anything, something that would tell me what she felt the same way or if she didn't. I needed a response to know she was okay or going to make it. But nothing happened as her eyes just drooped closed and she stopped moving. I continued to hold her, thinking gloomily of how any of this would turn out okay and if she would ever come back and tell me how she felt.

A lone tear dragged its way down my cheek and down the slope of my nose, plummeting to her uniform, where a dark crimson spot was blooming. _Oh, Kate_, I prayed silently. _Please come back . . ._

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